Does anyone knows the meaning or how it came about of the word;yankee?

Question

both Hispanics and in the civil war it was used by the South to refer to the North.

Answer 1

The origins of "Yankee" have been fiercely debated throughout the history of the Republic, and to this day the Oxford English Dictionary says the source of the word is "unascertained." Perhaps the most widely accepted explanation was advanced by H.L. Mencken, the well-known newsman-scholar (and don't tell me that isn't an unusual combination), who argued that Yankee derives from the expression Jan Kaas, literally "John Cheese." This supposedly was a derogatory nickname bestowed on the Dutch by the Germans and the Flemish in the 1600s. (Wisconsin cheeseheads can undoubtedly relate.)

The English later applied the term to Dutch pirates, and later still Dutch settlers in New York applied it to English settlers in Connecticut, who were known for their piratical trading practices. During the French and Indian War the British general James Wolfe took to referring derisively to the native New Englanders in his army as Yankees, and the term was widely popularized during the Revolutionary War by the song "Yankee Doodle." By the war's end, of course, the colonists had perversely adopted the term as their own. Southerners used Yankee pejoratively to describe Northerners during the Civil War, but found themselves, along with all other Americans, called thus by the English during world wars I and II.

The alternative explanations--Mencken lists 16 of them--are that Yankee derives from various Indian languages, or from Scottish, Swedish, Persian, etc. James Fenimore Cooper claimed that Yankee resulted from a fractured attempt by the Indians to pronounce the word "English." But most others think Cooper was about as good an etymologist as he was a novelist.

Answer 2

It's from Dutch "Jan Kees"=John Cheese" which is what Dutch used to call those who emmigrated to their North American settlements. Cheese was cheaper than meat and as cheap as sailor's bread, so they took a lot of cheese and little meat aboard ship, hence the derogatory name.
It was a name that the inhabitants of New Amsterdam (later to become New York City) used for themselves. Then it came to designate all those born and bred in the Northern half of the US.

Answer 3

It because the colonist call the British lobster and they though it was a insult so the British said a name back it was the Yankees that all that how Yankees existed and in a song.

Answer 4

I have heard it was originally only applied to people who lived in N York. At that time this city had a alrge Dutch and German population. They were nicknamed 'Jahnke's'. From an old dutch male name, equivalent to english 'John'. Later applied to all people living in the Northern States and eventually all Us citizens.

Answer 5

I'm from the South and I guess its from the way yall talk!!!

Answer 6

yeah, I do... from tupac.. yeah!!!!!